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The expansion plans of VW will add more competition into the US market which is declining. Martin Winterkorn ran VW's Audi business. He became VW's new CEO this year and brings a new leadership perspective to his job. He has several new strategies. In the area of pricing he wants to reduce unneeded features such as external mirrors that fold inward for narrow European streets, and bring down the price of VW Jetta and Passat models to be competitive with Toyota's Corolla and Camry models. Currently a Jetta is $17,000, a Corolla is $ 15,200 and a Passat is $23900 compared to a Camry at $20,000. VW's plans are to set a sales target of 1 million cars by 2018, tripling sales in ten years from the current 330,000 vehicles. In the next 3 years to 2010 sales world wide are expected to increase by 12 to 15%, VW wants to capture a bigger share by seeing its sales increase by 30% from the six million units today to 8 million units by 2010. Winterkorn sees this as possible given that VW has a more centralized management structure now which makes for quicker decisions. VW is also working on a new family of small fuel efficient cars on a common platform to be sold in China, India and other markets where a small car will be popular. Winterkorn referred to its new concept car as an example of the direction this would take. As importing cars from Europe is becoming costlier with the strong euro and the Japanese in contrast have the advantage of a weaker yen, the expansion plans will require lower pricing. VW looks to build a plant in the USA. Another strategy is to add 12 new models to its global product line and to launch more new vehicles in new product segments. This is what Winterkorn thinks has given Toyota its increased sales. A new compact SUV caled the Tiguan will be introduced. What all this means is that VW is seeking to move buyers of Japanese and American cars to try German cars, make German cars cost less and make a strong showing in the American and global markets. ...

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After winning the Nation's League final over Netherlands next we will see her playing soccer in the Olympics. Aitana Bonmati talks about her life and experiences. Bonmati has given a boost to women's soccer with her talents, hard work and resilience, and by reaching out to fans all over Europe and the world. Alex Ibaceta interviews Spain's Bonmati in The Guardian. She started out playing with the boys because there were no girls to play with. She signs up for the town's football team Club Depotiu Ribes and Club de Football Cubelles playing with boys. As a cadete (14-15 years) she had to switch to playing on women's teams. This was a change at first as she had to learn to interact with girls. She says we had worse general conditions in life simply for being girls and even more in football. These were years when there was no professional women's soccer. She thought she wold play for a few years and then go to the US for studies, considering the University of Oregon. This is when she gets called to the women's first team. Bonmati talks about her mentality, not just the talent and hard work, but the mentality of sacrifice, resilience, fight and want to be better every day. To every young girl trying out a new sport, she describes this- it is a journey that is not pretty at times, there are bad moments, but these bad moments are what make you better as you learn to keep improving and know how to keep getting better. And to take on difficulties as opportunities. When she was goinghome from training with her father, they would use public transport and get home at 1 am. Looking back to where she is now idolized by young girls , what she has been able to accomplish she says it was not down to luck but all the hard work throughout the years. ...

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"The NHS is on its knees," says Starmer, one more reaon to ban outdoor smoking. Labor in 2007 put the ban on indoor smoking. Sunak had a plan for the Tories to ban smoking. Starmer is now following this to reduce the burden on the NHS and improve public health in the UK. The bill would gradually ban smoking for people born after 2009, an idea proposed by Sunak and the Conservatives. The bill would place new restrictions on outdoor smoking, including outdoor spaces at, and pavements outside, clubs and restaurants, as well as at universities, children’s play areas and small parks. Asked about this during a visit to Paris, Starmer said: “My starting point on this is to remind everybody that over 80,000 people lose their lives every year because of smoking,” he said. “That is a preventable death, it’s a huge burden on the NHS and, of course, it is a burden on the taxpayer. So, yes, we are going to take decisions in this space, more details will be revealed, but this is a preventable series of deaths and we’ve got to take action to reduce the burden on the NHS and the taxpayer.”  The prime minister said-“It is important to get the balance right, but everybody … who uses the NHS will know that it’s on its knees.” Dr Layla McCay, the director of policy at the NHS Confederation, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “It is absolutely the health challenge of our time. It’s the leading cause of preventable illness in the UK, so we are heartened to see that progress is being made and that the intention is moving forward to really address one of Britain’s main drivers of health inequalities.” ...

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Lessons can be learned about careful reopening in fighting the coronavirus from other countries. Here the Netherlands experienced a rise of cases by 500% within two weeks of reopening after some poor decisions. The Mark Rutte government decided to open all bars and nightclubs resulting in a twelve fold surge in these locations in one week. Most of the new coronavirus cases were in people 18-29. Data from Dutch public health institute shows 4 out of 10 new cases linked to bars and nightclubs with 262% surge in cases for young people 18-24 years. This goes to show that with the vaccination drive what we see is the cases shifting to younger people, the unvaccinated, and to activities like nightlife. People going to work, or doing hybrid remote work with trips to the office, workers in factories, people doing essential shopping, are not causing the rise in cases. Much can be learned from these examples in working out reopening that does not lead to new crises with surging cases in new waves of coronavirus. Earlier in 2020 summer tourists who ignored mask and social distancing restrictions in Croatia brought on a post summer coronavirus wave to Germany and Austria. This time Greece and Portugal are introducing restrictions. Greece plans to make vaccine health pass required effective July 21 to go into restaurants. Another lesson from Netherlands this week is that a 20,000 person music event of 2 days in Utrecht where QR codes were required showing vaccination or PCR tests failed. About 1000 cases were attributed to the Utrecht event alone. Reasons given are that people faked the QR codes, or that the covid testing system produced too many false results as much as 20%. The same QR code system was followed at nightclubs resulting in big problems. One can never be sure that things work as expected and the risks are great as this adds up. Even vaccines offer limited protection and only if fully vaccinated depending on the type of vaccine. One dose of the vaccine is simply inadequate, and obesity, other morbidities can lead to problems. Withdrawing the mandatory use of face masks in most situations is also a risky decision of the Dutch government. Face masks offer the added protection at a time of variants that spread quckly, and when large parts of the population have only one dose of the vaccine, some elderly are still not vaccinated, and young people have not been vaccinated in large numbers. ...

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The old online websites AOL and Yahoo are going through a transformation. Yahoo finalized an agreement to merge its web-search with Microsoft and much of their advertising busiesses. This leaves Yahoo with its popular finance, sports and news websites which are cheap to run as they are mostly aggregators of other websites' content with little that is Yahoo's own content. Yahoo's plan is to expand its audience , especially in develpoing countries where internet use is growing fast, and to package that audience in ways attractive to advertisers. In October 2009, according to comScore market research firm Yahoo had 158 millon visitors in America, and AOL had 98 millon. Yahoo! Mail has 106 million users monthly worldwide, AOL's email service has 336 million. The difference strategy pursued by Armstrong who is new CEO at AOL is to focus on creating new content. AOL is running about 80 websites covering everything from fashion (stylelist.com) and country music (theboot.com) to local news (patch.com). And has launched a website called seed.com to get people to contribute content. In this way it has about 3500 journalists on its payroll, some 500 of them work full-time. Armstrong thinks advertisers will pay a premium to appear next to this original niche site and home-made content. So far advertising has held up in this severe downturn, with online display advertising -the banners and boxes that show up on websites- at about $3.8 billion in the first half of 2009 in America, according to Interactive Advertising Bureau....

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THe Fed is pumping new money into the financial system. $800 billion of new money over the past seven months, since September 2008. Last week it said another trillion dollars or more could be added int he months ahead. The way this works is the Fed purchases securities or other assets from securities dealers in exchangefor electronic credits that amount to cash and are deposited in banks. These cash credits known as bank reserves have jumped from $3 billion in August to $776 billion by mid March 2009. This week it said it would buy $1.25 trillion of mortgage backed securtities backed by Faniie and Freddie, and $200 billion in debt issued by these firms. And also buy upto $300 billion of longterm debt issued by the US Treasury. THe idea is to drive down longterm interest rates. All the while the Fed is not printing money in the old fashioned way- Federal Reserve notes also called dollars only increased to $862 billion from $793 billion. Still it is increasing the banks reserves in this way. And these mountains of cash in reserves are sitting in the banks as there is not much lending, and consumers are reluctant to borrow and to spend, and with all that unused production capacity there is little chance of inflation. When the economy recovers the Fed hopes, if all works out as planned, to pull that extra money out of the system and pushing interest rates higher before inflation settles into the system....

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Alan Blinder talks about the benefits of alarge cash for clunkers program and how it could be designed around what parameters and upon which it could be broadened or narrowed. One thing he points out is that it would help the economically challenged, though how these low income people would go out and buy new cars in the midst of deep recession and credit card bills, and other debt, is a question. The German customers were not in the debt situation many lower income Americans are. The alternative approach would be to broaden the program to give the middle class the benefits, and design it around giving a boost to the depressed auto industry and the midwest region. Such a program would need adequate financing like the $20 billion, Blinder says, and would include the possibility of turning in an old clunker for a Malibu or Impala or a Focus. Only focussing on small cars would not give much of a boost to Detroit car makers, which are focussed more on the middle and larger ends of the product line. From the cleaner environment perspective and carbon emissions perspective, the cars that are 13 years or older account for 25% of the miles driven, but 75% of the pollution from cars. This and reducing dependence on foreign oil suggest that the benefits of a well designed program or a combination of programs targeting different goals such as environment, boosting the Detroit car makers, and so on , could be well worth an investment of more than the $20 billion, Blinder suggests. ...

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The healthcare reform bill has lost the support of the SEIU (the Service Employees International Union) , and the AFL-CIO union. Its also lost the support od Howard Dean and of his Democracy for America. Voters aged 18-34 and Hispanics are much less enthusuastic for he party. And only 23% of blue collar workers in December 2009 express positive feelings about the Democratic party in a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, a 30 point drop from February 2009. And the same poll showed that there just isn't the same level of interest in voters who back Democrats or Obama.

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Did U.S. Treaury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, ignore a key request by President Obama to present plans for the restructuring of Citigroup after the government bailout of Citigroup? Ron Suskind says this is what happened in his book on the Obama administration and how the White House operated to make key decisions. Ron Suskind, intervewed key members of the Obama White House economic policy team, Lawrence Summers, Christina Romer, Peter Orszag. In all Suskind conducted 700 hours of interviews for his new book in Sept 2011: "Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington and the Education of a President." According to the book, in early 2009 after Obama authorized a series of stress tests for banks he told Geithner to develop a plan for restructuring Citigroup. A month later at a meeting not attended by Geithner Obama raised a question about the status of the plan. He was told by Romer that no restructuring plan had been developed for Citi. Suskind says Geithner disagreed about a plan to restructure Citi and decided to ignore the request. Geithner and the Treasury Department say Obama asked Geithner to develop a backup plan to overhaul banks if the government was forced to keep a big ownership stake in the companies, and "there was fortunately never a need to put them in place." Geithner told Suskind that he doesn't slow-walk the President on any matter. Other aspects of the operation of the economic policy team that Suskind covers are a series of memos from top aide Pete Rouse raising questions that ongoing communication between some members of the economic team and Summers was giving Summers power to shape policy. Summers, Director of the National Economic Council, is shown as trying to keep out the views of Romer and budget director Orszag from reaching the President without going through him. When Orszag gives a private report to the president on the deficit, Summers objects saying that this was immoral. Obama lacked the fresh ideas needed to tackle the problems created by the mortgage and banking crisis of 2008, when he used the Clinton administration economic policy team of the 1990's- Rubin, Bernanke, Summers and Geithner. Fresh approaches were needed two decades after Clinton's election in 1992, and the Bush administration that followed, as many of the problems developed during this period. The similiar embedded thinking was shared during the Clinton and Bush administrations and the economic advisors about dealings with the banking sector, but the situation for deficits, unemployment, housing, and the economy had completely changed requiring fresh approaches. ...

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The authors of this article say 2.4 million excess houses over and above nomal working inventories remain to be sold, and it is this surplus that is a mortal enemy of housing prices. US buyers are too debt ridden and have seen their 401 K's and pensions decline. So they suggest giving permanent resident status to immigrants who will invest in US housing, buy one or more than one house. They did not have to live in them, they also could not rent them, and would have to be above a certain price, so they would be taken off the housing market. They are aware of the effect on Vancouver of letting people from Hong Kong buy into that market, just before the handover to China. About a quarter of Vancouver's population became Chinese, and billions were invested in the housing market. They quote Merrill Lynch that there are 7.1 million households in the world with $1 million in financial assets, with a total of $29 trillion. They figure that 2.4 million excess houses could be sold at a median price of $184,000, and bring in billion sof dollars. If jobs are not impacted, and wealthy people in Asia and the rest of the developing world were to put money into buying houses of above $184,000 as an asset, with a temorary residency attached to it which could be permanent in 5 years, this could be part of the overall solution to the housing excess supply. The fact that values are attractive could make this an investment for affluent foreigners who may not stay in the houses at this time and keep it as a safe haven house, an additional property to use in the USA. It would ease the hosuing price situation in certain cities by bringing in a new buyer with resources into the market. ...

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The full text of the letter is given here. In this letter the U.S. sets out some important facts about events that happened during the coronavirus crisis during the crucial 4 month period from December 2019 to March 2020. Every week lost in this time due to reasons of a lack of transparency, openness meant hundreds of thousands of people more infected and tens of thousands of deaths worldwide. There are questions of transparency, of openness and this raises questions about the manner in which the World Health Assembly operates with hundreds of small countries in Africa and Asia having votes equal to that of the U.S., India, Brazil, Mexico with votes taken of over 200 countries. The entire election process can now be seen as questionable, when over a billion people in one country alone such as India or hundreds of millions in Brazil and Mexico would have to bear the consequences of poor decisions made by small countries that can be swayed in one direction or another based on political bias and other considerations that have nothing to do with global health.  At the conclusion of the letter by the U.S. to the current WHO shaped by a controversial election in 2017 the following is stated about the standards set by Gro Harlem Brundtland and which helped the world prevent the SARS crisis which originated in China in 2003 from spreading to the large countries of the world India, Brazil, Mexico, and other such countries in Asia and Africa, Latin America, and the U.S. European Union. "In 2003, in response to the outbreak of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in China, Director-General Harlem Brundtland boldly declared the World Health Organization’s first emergency travel advisory in 55 years, recommending against travel to and from the disease epicenter in southern China. She also did not hesitate to criticize China for endangering global health by attempting to cover up the outbreak through its usual playbook of arresting whistleblowers and censoring media. Many lives could have been saved had you followed Dr. Brundtland’s example." Even this does not come to grips with the flawed way in which the election of WHO head is done. It can no longer be relied on when there is the danger that lack of transparency can emerge in the WHO leadership itself because of a flawed process. It risks endangering the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of millions in countries such as India, Brazil, Mexico, as well as in the relatively small countries of Africa and Latin America where even basic water supplies are at risk but which could tilt elections at the World Health Assembly. Consider that a cyclone just hit the Indian state of West Bengal and Bangladesh on May 20 just as the coronavirus pandemic is spreading. That this region of 1.5 billion people had just 2 votes out of over 200 cast at the World Health Assembly in 2017 shocking. And even these votes cast based on old geopolitical considerations not how good the candidate is, and how good the country he is coming from is in terms of its record  on public health. The irony here is that private foundations in the advanced countries in the U.S. and Europe some of whom are major donors to WHO did not think that more experienced candidates in their own countries with a better record of public health such as in France or Germany are better qualified, in a flawed NGO support mentality left from the Clinton years. Basically the people in these large countries such as India, Brazil, Mexico were disenfranchised, when the austerity policies were consuming the European Union, and the U.S. had just elected a new administration itself groping for ways to reverse years of neglect of public services and infrastructure priorities. They would trust good leaders no matter where they come from, who have a record of transparency, leadership, and all the values we cherish together no matter where we come from. ...

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A less known political leader, Albert Hernandez, who teaches university law classes, is now set to become the next president of Argentina. He has worked with Peronist party under the Kirchner administrations and quit Christina Kirchner's administration after some disagreements on policies.  He is so far ahead of president Macri- sixteen points in the primary, that it is seen as too much of a gap for Macri to reverse. Hernandez is seen as a pragmatic leader and has as his running mate Christina Kirchner. Ms. Kirchner says she supports Hernandez as he can bring together all the Peronist factions. Mr. Hernandez is 60 years old and has worked with Peronist leaders in government from the 1990's who supported free market changes and with the Kirchner administrations when Argentina was recovering from economic collapse. Hernandez says he is learning from the mistakes made by Christina Kirchner. During the administration of Nestor Kirchner, Christina's husband, Hernandez, who was chief of staff, acted as a key problem solver. Argentina faced a crisis in debt accumulation and defaulted on the debt during that period around 2003. Argentina recovered from that crisis with the help of a commodities boom and demand from China. Mr. Hernandez was also chief of staff under Christina Kirchener who followed her husband as president, but resigned early because of differences on economic policy. Today debt accumulation is again a problem, with debt built up under the Macri administration and errors in policy of Mr. Macri. Christina Kirchner asked Hernandez to lead the ticket after it was clear that Peronist factions who did not support her could only come together if Mr Hernandez was the candidate. As a moderate without ideological tendency Mr. Hernandez was able to lead a broader coalition after errors in economic policy made by Mr. Macri leading to high inflation and a declining economy. Mr. Hernandez says he would renegotiate a deal with the IMF for a $57 bailout, which was signed by Mr. Macri to tackle a currency crisis. He also plans to take a new look at the trade deal with the European Union. Today both Brazil and Argentina are mired in economic crisis. Brazil through extravagant spending including on pensions, that left basic sanitation services, transport services, health care  poorly funded. Argentina has gone from prosperity to crisis, before 2003 during the first Kirchner administration, and now under Mr. Macri in 2019. Recurrent economic crises are a regular pattern in the region since 1950, with the region dependent on commodities exports and failing to build manufacturing industries.   ...

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Friedman quotes the Israeli newspaper Haaretz on the intransigence of both the Palestinians under Abbas and Israelis under Likud leader Netanyahu. The Haaretz account of the currrent state of Israeli-Palestinian relations said the situation was close to where it was at the turn of the century, when it was considered a goal just to have Palestinians and Israelis sit down and talk to each other. Friedman suggests Netanyahu offer a 6 month freeze on new settlements as a way to get the Palestinians to negotiate a new peace; saying it costs Israel little as there are already 300,000 new settlers, and the prospects for a settlement make this worthwhile. He also recounts the fears of both sides. The Palestinian side sees the new settlements as sending the message that Israel wants two states, one in the pre-1967 borders and the other in the post-1967 borders, both belonging to Israel. The Israelis fear the Palestinian's covet some of the land that is now inside Israel, but was once part of the old Palestine; and have never reconciled to the co-existence of a Jewish state alongside a Palestinian state, or a Jewish people's co-existence alongside a Palestinian people....

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The expectations from the G20 summit in London which ends April 2, 2009, have been toned down both by the Obama administration and by Gordon Brown's government. It has proved quite difficult to get agreement on expanding the stimulus. With Germany and France and some other European governments not going along with President Obama. Also difficult is the task of getting action from these G20 summits, as a lot of meetings have to be held, and agreement has to be reached between many nations, compared to the old G7 which could meet in the White House library. And the local situation in each country is different, with different pressing priorities at home. The long term structural changes, and global regulatory reform, are changes that require more time, more consensus. And some issues such as larger developing country role in governance is not a priority for the large European countries and the USA, which raises questions about the role of the IMF, and the manner in which assistance is adminstered through the IMF. That role exacerbated the crisis in S. Korea during the Asian banking crisis. See the link. As a result there is considerable apprehension about seeking IMF assistance among developing countries. This covers Eastern Europe and other developing countries....

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Issues raised by the huge mismatch between revenues and investment for AI. $400 billion estimated investment by 5 Tech firms in 2025 alone with revenue of about $40 billion and huge uncertainty about when AI will produce returns. Articles seen this week of November 17 in the WSJ and NYT on this issue, podcasts, discussions in other media outlets. Could this lead to a dot com bubble type economic crisis? Could that lead to a recession? Alongside these articles another article in the WSJ on Nov 17 shows the benefits small firms get by using AI, benefits which are on the fringes of their business, not essential but with some experimenting firm owners/managers able to tweak AI information for use in business. Nothing significant which firms will pay much money for. The uncertainty is a major factor. Should geopolitics trump all these concerns? Is the competition with China require this scale of investment, and is China following a more utilitarian approach as reported in a WSJ article this month, of investing in AI in a utilitarian way targeting its use in improving manufacturing, improving infrastructure, and not wildly throwing money at experimental uses that are unlikely to yield much result. In geopolitical sense would the country that not only promoted AI but used it efficiently and cost effectively, used it in ways that promote the overall public good, get the WIN. In short it behooves everyone of us to ask hard questions of AI, to dehype the hype, to look for the public good that comes out of this from it's efficient use. To ask the tough questions when $400 billion generates only $40 billion in 2025 and the $3 trillion planned investment over 5 years is half unfunded, is it going to crowd out energy needs for homes and business, push renewable energy targets back, crowd out essential investments in the crumbling aging infrastructure of the US and Europe, crowd out essential investments in education, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, and manufacturing, that hold better promise for our People. Will it also put retirees at risk when corporate bonds from retirees money fund the unfunded portion of AI? This means making the political dimension not about migration, settling the illegal migration issue that was meant to be settled a long time back, or about cultural issues that have little day to day impact on our lives which are about groceries, childcare, housing that are non ideological. Making the political dimension not about remote countries that one knows little about except when it affects public safety and health as with fentanyl. Capital allocation decisions to the vital needs of America can then be free of politically induced error, so that it can be subjected to the test of how best it serves the public interest and the people of the Nation. ...

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Interview with Gerard Kleisterlee, retiring CEO of Philips Electronics. Kleisterlee led the effort to focus on emerging markets where sales of health care, lighting and consumer products are accelerating. Second quarter sales in emerging markets went up 29% for 2010 over the prior year, and now are 34% of total Philips sales. As part of this strategy Philips is increasing its staff and research divisions in China, to capture part of the $125 billion that China plans to spend on healthcare in the next 3 years. Kleisterlee talks about local competitors in emerging markets who are trying to get a regional or global presence. How Philips is increasing local responsibility, and how it is designing, engineering and manufacturing products specifically aimed at local markets in emerging market countries- as away to compete effectively in these markets. He also points out that it is no longer sufficient to be in the major cities, Philips has to move into smaller cities and into the rural areas to increase sales. He sees consolidation opportunities in Asia where the lighting manufacturing is still fragmented. Responding to a question about Philips still being too old, too male, and too Dutch, Kleisterlee agrees that it is too male and too Dutch for his comfort. Women are a bigger part of his health-care team, but not that much progress in other areas of the company. And he would like to see more local leaders in emerging markets. He sees consumer behaviour changing in one respect- there is an increasing consciousness among buyers for value, and not just for low price points, but at all price points....

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A reading crisis in Sweden spreads from secondary school students to college students. 

Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) of the OECD showed that in 2022, 25% of 15-year-olds lacked basic reading and writing skills. In 2000, the figure was 13%. This has spread to college students. Scores in the US for NAEP and in the UK are much worse than Sweden yet there is nowhere near the same level of alarm about it.

 In December 2024, the Minister of Education and leader of the Liberal Party, Johan Pehrson, met with representatives from universities, student organizations and the national education agency to go over steps needed to tackle the "reading crisis."

 

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Fed's Bernanke sees cuts and higher taxes by state and local governments combining with higher oil prices slowing the U.S. economy. He told the Citizen's Budget commisson in New York, that in the long run the most important issue in fiscal matters will be whether the composition of the federal budget serves the public interest. And in saying this he emphasized the benefits of early childhood education, preschool programs and lifelong acquisition of skills. He advised states to take anticyclical steps to avoid the impact of boom and bust spending. One way to do this is to build rainy day funds that are then used for capital investment when times are bad.

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The Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan, one of two safety regulators in Japan, met in October 2010. At that meeting a presentation by Takanori Tanaka, head of the government supported Nuclear Power Engineering Center, advocated new technologies that would reduce risk in the event of earthquakes and tsunamis. The presentation focussed on new plants and did not go into retrofitting old plants with new backup solutions for cooling in the event of electrical failure. A recent article by Hitachi researchers brought up the idea of isolation condensers which could provide temporary power supplies in the event of electrical failure. One such device was on No. 1 reactor at Fukushima (built in 1971), and worked after the quake but later failed. The views of nuclear engineers at Hitachi discussed here show that cost remains a constraint in the design of nuclear reactor cooling systems, and redundancy with several layers of diverse backup systems for cooling are not being pushed by companies building the reactors. See the group articles for G.E.'s Mark 1 system which show cost and easier to build were factors behind the smaller containment systems favored for that design. Fukushima plant uses the Mark 1 reactors. Without independent safety regulation that does not rely on the companies for analysis and solutions, regulation risks becoming too dependent on companies for coming up with the strong safety precautions that are absolutely essential. These safety precautions can succumb to cost pressures....

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Former German chancellor Angela Merkel and foreign minister Steinmeier are singled out for their policies that likely emboldened Russia into its invasion of Ukraine. The DW.com says Merkel's tenure now shows deep seated flaws in leadership with her policies with Russia having gone too far in the other direction and leaving Europe in a vulnerable position. Merkel saw herself as continuing old policies from the period of SPD chancellor Willy Brandt of engaging with Russia, then called the Soviet Union. Yet looking at it closely the policy of Brandt was to reach accomodation with the eastern half of Germany, called the GDR, not to weaken Germany's position. By distancing herself from the US Merkel was in sense out on her own. Consider says DW.com that in 2014 Germany imported 36% of its gas from Moscow, by 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine it was 55%. The SPD under Gerhard Schroeder and Steinmeier following Schroeder share responsibility with Merkel for this dependence.    A similar integration of the German economy with China's economy happened under the 4 term administration of Angela Merkel. This can be seen in the port of Hamburg. This may have similarly emboldened China in its relations with neighbors in the Indo-Pacific region and with Taiwan. German chancellor Scholz is by one report reading Cambridge historian Brendan Simms- "Europe The Struggle for Supremacy 1453 to the Present." This historical account of the relations of major European states in the 5 centuries before the present period shows the Balance of Power as critical to the liberty and freedom that Britain and Netherlands as well as other countries were able to keep. Sweden was attacked in 1700 with sign of weakness, Britain faced challenges from France in 1700 and in 1800, and allied with the Hapsburgs and German states to maintain its democracy and way of life. Merkel of CSU and Steinmeier of SPD may have failed to realize this when they ignored the history of Europe. The WSJ report on the miscalculations on the German and French side with Sarkozy, Hollande and Macron show that all these leaders failed to grasp that by leaving the issue unsettled of Ukraine's NATO admission they had created the situation that was bad for both Russia and for Ukraine, creating seeds for serious differences that could lead to future conflict and war. By not respecting and giving room to the lessons of history these leaders in Western Europe have created the conditions for the very opposite of what they intended to do.  ...

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On the first day of the new vaccine policy on June 21, 2021, India has vaccinated 6.9 million people. India has now vaccinated 287 million people out of a population of 1.2 billion. This is a race against time as new variants caused the second wave of coronavirus in April and May of 2021 with cases peaking at over 300,000 a day.  The shortcoming of the old vaccine policy are being corrected. The entire vaccine supply process and the vaccination drive is now being handled by the federal government. Earlier during the second wave vaccine supply and the vaccination drives were under an arrangement with no clear overall responsibility. States shared responsibility with the federal government and target vaccination goals were missed, vaccine supplies were inadequate.  A similar arrangement in Germany failed and Germany's vaccination supplies were inadequate and vaccination drive stalled. This caused immense frustration in Germany in April-May 2021. Germany's troubled history before World War II led to a reliance on decentralized actions, and state governments imposed different rules in a relatively small country compared to India. This was corrected with the federal government taking on the entire responsibility for the vaccine supply and vaccination drive leading to good results today in vaccines. With India's huge population and political process of different state governments, some lacking experience in administration for a complex process, and others failing to coordinate well with the federal government, the lack of overall responsibility at the federal government posed serious risks of missing targets for vaccines and letting the coronavirus wreck the economy and public confidence. Complex negotiations with other governments in Europe and the US for vaccine manufacture in India could only be handled at the federal level. The resources and planning at the federal level were already in place in India for infrastructure and other projects, experience and setting targets in that area at the federal level could now be transferred to this task in vaccines. Somewhere in the range of 8 million vaccines a day need to be reached and sustained from August to December 2021 for India to reach the goal of vaccinated all 1.2 billion people ahead of any further attack from a third or fourth wave, say experts. This is not a choice for the federal government, it is simply something India has got to accomplish to be a healthy nation that can grow with neighbors in Europe, the US, Australia and Japan and build confidence in its Asia-Pacific region. The entire Asia-Pacific region has a lot resting on how well India achieve this goal and moves on to the next phase of assisting its neighbors in the region.  ...

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Gail Collins of the NYT describes the Hillary she came to know during the period she was Senator, a liberating time for Hillary Clinton, when she could be more of a private citizen, free of the publicity and attention as an active First Lady.  She chose to take up her assignment as New York Senator by visiting constituents and getting to know New York state, coming from Illinois and settling in Arkansas with her husband Bill Clinton in the early years. As Hillary herself said that was the first time she had lived in New York, and it was a time in which nobody cared in a nation having gotten tired of hearing about the Clintons, a welcome moment for Hillary who chose in her inimitable style to get to knowing her constituents. Collins tells about the enthusiasm of middle aged women in those days when women used their husband's name just to get a credit card, and it was harder for women to get a job than men. Bill Clinton talks about the Hillary he knew at law school and the years in Arkansas at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, and describes a real person that he came to know, not gregarious and easy with strangers as he was but with something deep inside caring for other people. One time he tells her that she could run for office, and she tells him in the courtship days that he was being silly that no one would vote for her. Americans must appear to Hillary as not caring much for First Lady or presidential spouses getting deeply involved in government, and American men not really passionate about women in key roles in government,  and as time passed and women in the thirties had grown accustomed to the newly won rights that Hillary and others had fought hard for to the point of looking for something new- throughout this Hillary was tested as never before. As the nominee of the Democratic Party for president she now had to prove that the old was also part of bringing in the new, that a passion for new encounters, experience and learning, combined with patience and perseverance, were also needed in the tasks of regenerating and renewal. If only she looked more carefully she would find that the first president having fought a long and difficult war for about ten years with men "half starved and often in rags", George Washington, also faced skepticism and doubts about him, which he alludes to frequently in his letters.      ...

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Jack Horton of BBC Verify screens the former president Trump's speech at the Republican National Convention. “Our crime rate is going up, while crime statistics all over the world are going down".  Fact: FBI data shows crime down 6% and a drop in the murder rate by 13% in 2023. For the First Quarter of 2024 crime down by 15% and recorded murder rate down 26%. "We've had the worst inflation we've ever had under this person [Biden]. I will end the devastating inflation crisis immediately, bring down interest rates and lower the cost of energy . We will drill, baby, drill."  Fact: Inflation went up to 9.1% from 1.4% at the end of the Trump term in the first 2 years of of the Biden Administration by June 2022. Biden and Federal Reserves Powell brought this down to 3%. Explained: This inflation jump to 9% would have happened from supply chain in China for Trump administration as well. Trump's last year was 2019 the Covid pandemic started in January the lockdown by midyear meant sharp drop in demand and little room for inflation. The concentration of supply chain in China was the cause of the surge in inflation as China shut down and restarted late into 2022 causing shortages in factory parts and supplies. Biden focused on vaccination in 2020-2021. This inflation would have happened under Trump- this concentration of supply chain started with Reagan economic philosophy to ship production (and jobs) overseas, Clinton Bush Obama and Trump did little about it. Biden invested heavily in Make in America manufacturing and jobs at home. Biden and Powell did a good job of bringing this inflation down by 2023 to 3% before the European Union and UK. Younger voters don't know this they get their news from the internet and show little interest, see only that the low inflation under Trump and the higher inflation during the pandemic recovery under Biden and blame Biden. will Trump do better on inflation in 2024-2028. The WSJ does not think so its analysis shows inflation higher under Trump than Biden because of a planned 60% tax on imports from China. Trump follows Reagan/Friedman theory of the old Republican party of higher tax cuts for the wealthy, so no money is left for investing in American manufacturing and jobs as Biden free of this theory is able to do, leading to slowing growth with inflation under Trump.        ...

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Europe ten years ago invested heavily in gas fired electricity plants thinking that natural gas will be plentiful in the future. Now with global demand rising with the emergence of China and Russia. and Western Europe's own reserves, such as Norway's depleting, Europe is in a bind. Alexei Miller told shareholders: "The Natural Gas Market is now a seller's market." Western Europe's share of global gas consumption rose to 17.4 % in 2004 from 14.9% ten years ago. Now countries like Italy and Germany are scrambling to secure supplies and build long term relationships with Gazprom while Poland and other Eastern European countries are facing uncertainty about reliability of Russian gas supplies. Italian oil company Eni is negotiating a long term relationship to cooperate with Gazprom to recover gas from the Russian North and to supply the Italian market. Eni's CEO Paolo Scaroni addressing an industry conference in Amsterdam in June 2006, provided estimates that by 2012 Europe will need 220 billion cubic metres or nearly 2 and half times Italy's annual consumption. Scaroni said: "Where are we going to find all that gas?" Like other countries in Europe Scaroni does not see Gazprom as the whole answer, but sees few other ways to solve supply problems. Italy will invest in liquefied natural gas to have flexibility of sourcing. In the end though Scaroni is relying on Gazprom and says : "This gives them a responsibility to the Italian market .. and it strengthens our relationship."...